Jailed Subrata Roy gets office to negotiate hotel deal

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Sahara chief Subrata Roy to use Tihar jail’s conference room for 10 working days for talks with potential buyers of his three luxury hotels in New York and London.

Roy, in jail since March 4, needs to sell his overseas properties to raise `10,000 crore to enable his release on regular bail.

A bench of justices TS Thakur, AR Dave and AK Sikri said Roy can start the talks from August 5.

It asked Delhi Government to issue notification by August 4 to declare the conference room as a jail until the deadline ends. Besides, the two jailed Sahara directors can accompany Roy who can hold the negotiations from 6am to 8pm.

The bench also permitted them to avail the service of three staff — two secretarial and one technical person — during the hours of negotiations with a clear direction they would leave the jail premises after 8pm.

The order, which came on an application made by Roy, made it clear that Sahara would foot the bills for using the Wi-fi facility of the conference room and get the other gadgets like landline telephones with STD/ISD facilities at their own cost. They were also allowed to have a mobile phone, computers — desk top and lap top — and printers.